-A competition for short stories/poems - the winner gets a particular book, and the work in the competition is (legally) made into a sellable book of its own-Artists could contribute to the making of picture books, similar to jan Same's awesome "Elephant in the room" story-Or, as above, comics!-With Sonja's permission, pu could be translated into multiple other languages (including Esperanto of course ) and distributed in areas that speak those languages-Indie games could be created, or there could be a translation team that takes existing games and contacts developers and translates their games for free (or, if at a cost, the cost goes back to the trust)-The trust could support the use of TP in other books/stories (as we have seen in that sci-fi novel that popped up a while ago, and that cute tv show)-Not just books, but songs could be shared around/written, too!-Eventually, maybe short movies and animations could be made in toki pona

janAetherStar wrote: A group for making tp content, selling it, and using the money to buy pu and their stuff and distribute it to libraries and newcomers etc. What do you think?

jan "AetherStar" o, toki!

I think the idea of making Toki Pona content is good. But I don't belief that you can't sell it very good. And why you would like to buy "pu"? There are free online lessons. In my opinion it is cheaper to promote the URLs and/or print these lessons and distribute it to libraries and newcomers.

pona!jan Lopehttps://jan-lope.github.io(Lessons and the Toki Pona Parser - A tool for spelling, grammar check and ambiguity check of Toki Pona)

On my foe list are the sockpuppets janKipo and janSilipu because of permanent spamming.

As for content, all the tp there is up to 2009 is in the corpus at tokipona.net and just needs editing and rearranging to make books of all sorts. I have much of the material since 2009 (Live Journal, G+. toki lili, etc. and Facebook since mid 2015) stored away but I don't know how to get it into an appropriate form on the net. This includes addresses for most Youtube items and assorted other loose pieces: word lists, fonts, textbooks, etc. (I haven't found the old word lists yet, though). If you can get a group interested, I would welcome their help in plowing through the remaining backlog of Facebook and other sources and organizing the whole. Of course, original works are welcome, too, but I like the idea of getting the base firm (if for no other reason than having to go through the same half dozen points every newby cycle).

jan Lope o:I guess you're right about distributing free lessons and links (I used to advertise tp with project wonderful sometimes, hehe), but I will say that pu has been useful for some people who find the use of it very easy and quick, v.s. something lengthier. It also comes in book format, v.s. something that would have to be bound manually after printing (and the printing/binding cost might be nearly as much, and I doubt libraries would take those sorts of "books". Though printing a series of mini-zines about tp and putting them places couldn't hurt.) Keep in mind it's not just about buying pu but buying the created content and sharing that around too, hence the whole bilingual book idea (inspired by Star in a Night Sky and a Chinese/English children's book I saw once). I agree that stuff might not sell well, but the idea rests on gradual growth and increases in numbers, not just an immediate "boom" effect. The main aim is also to give people an excuse to make sellable content, not just post a story here and there and say we're all done - a reason for people to get inspired to take on larger/more detailed projects. I'm thinking along the lines of that tp book on Lulu.com that happened once, but was deleted. It'd be a fun thing to make happen in any case - even if it were just a group and not a recognized charity.

jan Kipo o:That sounds freaking awesome, and I see what you mean about having a strong initial foundation, but wouldn't we need to get the legal permission of the original authors before selling anything? It might be cumbersome, but maybe there could be an interview process for new people in the group if it were to be set up. It might involve a personal assessment of one's ability and standing in the community, a paragraph on when/why they started learning, a copy of a previous translation or original work, and a brief test (highlighting newbie grammar mistakes and trickier ones, translating sentences, etc...). (I don't mean this in an elitist sense, just to filter out people who know what they're doing and have seen tp go through some changes vs people who are still getting to grips with tp thought processes and grammatical details.) The group could be maybe 10-15 people at the start, then we'll see who is capable of taking a leading role long-term. These people can recruit newcomers that have certain roles, but still be under the same main group and co-operate internally. How does this sound? I'd have to hunt down someone to do it all though, since I have the time to type ideas and translate/create the odd thing but not much else at the minute.

janAetherStar wrote:jan Lope o:I guess you're right about distributing free lessons and links (I used to advertise tp with project wonderful sometimes, hehe), but I will say that pu has been useful for some people who find the use of it very easy and quick, v.s. something lengthier. It also comes in book format, v.s. something that would have to be bound manually after printing (and the printing/binding cost might be nearly as much, and I doubt libraries would take those sorts of "books". Though printing a series of mini-zines about tp and putting them places couldn't hurt.) Keep in mind it's not just about buying pu but buying the created content and sharing that around too, hence the whole bilingual book idea (inspired by Star in a Night Sky and a Chinese/English children's book I saw once). I agree that stuff might not sell well, but the idea rests on gradual growth and increases in numbers, not just an immediate "boom" effect. The main aim is also to give people an excuse to make sellable content, not just post a story here and there and say we're all done - a reason for people to get inspired to take on larger/more detailed projects. I'm thinking along the lines of that tp book on Lulu.com that happened once, but was deleted. It'd be a fun thing to make happen in any case - even if it were just a group and not a recognized charity.

jan AetherStar o, toki!

I think these are different things: To promote "pu" and collect Toki Pona content. "pu" has a ISBN number (0978292308) and you can rent it in big libraries. I think it is not necessary to buy it and give it to libraries. Better is it to make advertising for it. For collecting content we can use a online portal (wiki) with functions for comment and rating the texts. This is necessary because you can find a lot of texts with wrong grammar (slang). The software mediawiki supports the PDF export. With this function you can make booklets with your favourite texts.

pona!

pona!jan Lopehttps://jan-lope.github.io(Lessons and the Toki Pona Parser - A tool for spelling, grammar check and ambiguity check of Toki Pona)

On my foe list are the sockpuppets janKipo and janSilipu because of permanent spamming.

jan Lope o, that sounds like an idea I had once before of a sort of "tp hub" where you add texts, videos, links to texts and videos, etc etc, and give people a way to comment on and rate them. Similar idea and it would help a ton with the creation process of books, but it's not the idea to just compile content. The idea of it being a group means everyone would have stated that their work can be used in books that sell and make money (that money of which gets used by the group to purchase and spread more books and advertise tp etc etc), which would require a different set of legal rules than it just be a place for people to post stuff anywhere they want.However, I like your idea better now that I think about it more (especially if there were a button you could press to just print a certain text or group of texts in a book-ish format), and I guess if there was a donation program to fund advertisements for tp (or just run the server) for people who like that kind of an idea, that could solve both ideas.

janAetherStar wrote:jan Lope o, that sounds like an idea I had once before of a sort of "tp hub" where you add texts, videos, links to texts and videos, etc etc, and give people a way to comment on and rate them. Similar idea and it would help a ton with the creation process of books, but it's not the idea to just compile content. The idea of it being a group means everyone would have stated that their work can be used in books that sell and make money (that money of which gets used by the group to purchase and spread more books and advertise tp etc etc), which would require a different set of legal rules than it just be a place for people to post stuff anywhere they want.However, I like your idea better now that I think about it more (especially if there were a button you could press to just print a certain text or group of texts in a book-ish format), and I guess if there was a donation program to fund advertisements for tp (or just run the server) for people who like that kind of an idea, that could solve both ideas.

jan "AetherStar"" o, toki.

Your idea to build a group (social club) with rules for the members. Maybe this could work. In Germany we have many social clubs (Vereine), but I don't like it. I think it is easier to make a website to collect content. The only thing is that the writers have to put the texts under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (see Wikipedia).

Maybe you ask: How we can sell it because everybody can download it? I wrote a book with a friend and we've self-published on http://www.bod.de. But we were to lazy to make advertising for it and we've decided to put it under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license and show the whole content in a wiki. My wife spoke to me: "You can't sell this now!" But we 've sell a lot of books after it. To see the whole content is the best advertising!

pona!jan Lopehttps://jan-lope.github.io(Lessons and the Toki Pona Parser - A tool for spelling, grammar check and ambiguity check of Toki Pona)

On my foe list are the sockpuppets janKipo and janSilipu because of permanent spamming.

From a complete beginner the group/charitable trust, sounds like a great idea. And to echo the last post, i think having all the content under a Creative Commons, attribution-share alike license is all important to spread tokipona. ( i am using online resources to learn tokipona but can see myself buying pu one day, and would consider buying other works in tp, or about it also)Also i feel having audio files, the alphabet/words/basic phrases/sentences/poems/songs/sayings... (all tp originals, not to mention translations/interpretations of non-tp material aswell maybe) released under a Creative Commons attribution-share alike license-- would greatly help.

Tokipona.net is owned by jan Mato and .org and .com (which redirects to tokipona.org) are both owned by jan Sonja.Have you considered contacting jan Mato or jan Sonja? Maybe the group could share content with one of those domains, a subdomain with a group wiki etc?

Or pick a new domain name and get hosting. Any ideas on a name?

Having a tp resource owned by a group, rather than any one individual does sound like a good idea.

In a minor way, tomolipu.blogspot.com is moving in that direction. There are two texts up and half a dozen more in the pipeline and yet more in the reservoir. These are gathered from open sources. The other thing, that is not there but is in the works is a list, with urls up, of all the video and sound offerings -- and maybe the dozen or more textbooks in several languages.